Real judgements, distilled
Court judgements broken down into the case type, how the decision played out, and the lesson worth remembering, with the full judgement available as a PDF.
Transfer Petition (Criminal) · 2026 INSC 1060
Where a marriage has irretrievably broken down and the parties reach a genuine, voluntary settlement, including on alimony, the Supreme Court can use its Article 142 powers to grant a mutual-consent divorce and close out all related litigation in one stroke, without requiring the usual statutory waiting period.
Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026 INSC 1061
In long-running, complex litigation involving apportioned government liabilities across states, the Supreme Court can use a mechanism like a retired-judge committee plus periodic compliance affidavits to bring genuine finality, including firm timelines, transparency obligations, and interest for delayed payment, rather than leaving matters open-ended.
Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 1062
In an "as is where is" liquidation auction, a bidder who voluntarily accepts the auction terms cannot later resile from a forfeiture clause by citing regulatory caps or after-the-fact excuses for non-payment: courts will enforce the auction notice's own conditions.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8338-DB
Once someone is released from custody because the police failed to properly communicate the grounds of arrest, the police cannot simply re-arrest them by adding new charges: a specific, court-supervised procedure with senior-officer accountability must be followed, or the re-arrest itself becomes illegal.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8308
In economic-offence cases, bail can still be granted where the method used to quantify the alleged financial evasion is not adequately justified, and where the apprehension of re-offending is speculative rather than evidence-based.
Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8323
A parole claim must be backed by a genuine, verifiable application to the competent jail authority: courts will scrutinise irregularities like an incomplete address, an unexplained thumb mark, or reliance on a mere friend's affidavit rather than close family.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8337
Courts can grant short, strictly time-bound interim bail purely on humanitarian/compassionate grounds (such as caring for a seriously ill family member), even while a case remains pending trial and an earlier bail plea has failed.
Bail Application · 2026:DHC:8312
Courts will not repeatedly re-examine a bail plea already rejected on merits unless the applicant can point to a genuine change in circumstances since the earlier order.
First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8334
Under the no-fault compensation scheme for railway accidents, a valid ticket-holder injured while attempting to board a train, even carelessly, is generally entitled to compensation unless the railway can show a deliberate, conscious exposure to danger, not mere negligence.
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Legal Case Shots is a searchable database of Supreme Court of India judgments, each broken down into the case type, the court's key holding, and a practical lesson learnt, with the full judgment available as a PDF for citation or deeper reading.
The appellant association's resolution plan for a corporate debtor was approved by the NCLT, Kochi Bench. Respondent No.1 (mother of a suspended director of the corporate debtor, claiming to be a financial creditor) filed an appeal against that approval before the NCLAT, Chennai, on the very last permissible day, but the appeal had multiple defects, including that it was refiled without a certified copy of the NCLT's order under challenge: a requirement under Rule 22(2) of the NCLAT Rules. The NCLAT nonetheless condoned both the delay in filing and the 150-day delay in refiling, treating the refiling delay as a matter purely between it and the appellant, without examining whether the appeal was validly instituted in the first place.
The Supreme Court held that filing an appeal without even applying for a certified copy of the impugned order, as required under Rule 22(2) of the NCLAT Rules and settled by the earlier 3-judge decision in V. Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat and Power Limited: meant that, in the eyes of law, there was effectively no valid filing of an appeal at all. Respondent No.1 neither applied for a certified copy before the limitation period expired, nor sought exemption from filing one, at either the original filing or the refiling stage. Given the strict timelines the IBC mandates (as emphasized in Ebix Singapore v. Committee of Creditors of Educomp Solutions), the Court held the NCLAT ought to have first verified whether the appeal was properly instituted before considering delay condonation, and having failed to do so, its order condoning the delays was set aside as the appeal was "incurably tainted" and should have been rejected at the threshold.
In IBC appeals, filing (or refiling) without a certified copy of the order under challenge, or without seeking an exemption from that requirement, is not a mere curable technicality; it can render the appeal legally non-existent regardless of how the delay-condonation applications are decided. Litigants must apply for certified copies before their limitation period runs out to preserve their right of appeal.
